Simplification is big in the data center, as well as in the consumer devices market. Innovations such as near-field communications are being perfected to stretch some of the boundaries currently limiting the end points in the hands of customers, and in more ways than one.  NFC is seeing early adoption in the financial services industry, and in a couple of years another up-and-coming player may start a market shift of its own.

Tobii Technology is currently developing an eye-tracking system for the disabled, which, when finished, will hopefully achieve a significant improvement in their digital experience. The company already has several investors, and now Intel’s VC arm has stepped in as well with a $21 million capital injection.

There’s not all that much info available regarding this latest investment, but the newly forged alliance with the chipmaker has a lot of potential further down the road, even beyond the financial scene.  Ian Cooper, investment director at Intel Capital, is joining Tobii.

Joel Fisch, Director of Business Development at Intel’s Architecture Development Group, explains the company’s reason for investing, saying, “eye-gaze tracking holds great promise as a novel method for user/machine interaction. Working closely with Tobii, we hope to bring the benefit of this new technology to personal computing.”

Intel is trying to identify opportunities across several vertices, one of which is storage. One of the other ventures Intel Capital decided to get involved with is Amplidata, a storage startup that operates out of Belgium. It offers a system that has been built from the ground up to handle big data and big traffic, a concept that earned it $8 million in a Series C funding round.  In addition to Intel, Big Bang Ventures, Endeavour Vision and Swisscom also chipped in.